Monday, August 15, 2005

Passport

My new passport arrived today, bearing my ugliest passport photo yet. (And, let me assure you, that's saying A LOT!) Have discovered that the new passports contain three more pages of fine-print travel instructions. They're also much flimsier than the old versions. This has me nervous, because a friend's return to the States was delayed three weeks on account of a small, corner crease in his passport cover. (It got dinged up in the few months in which he had to carry it as a primary i.d., before he was able to get a U.S. driver's license.)

Also, I can't believe I'm supposed to have this passport until 2015. 2015! That's the same year that my high school class is supposed to dig up the "Class of '90" time capsule that I and other members of my student council interred on school grounds. And that's one more thing to worry about, as I have zero recollection as to where we might have buried the thing...

I'm wondering if it wouldn't be a good idea to get passports for the whole family, although we don't have any immediate plans for traveling outside the U.S. It just seems likely that in this era of enhanced ID checking, we may be asked to have them even in the U.S. As if driver's license pictures weren't bad enough!